Yesterday we spent most of the day in Lucca, mainly because we both had dental appointments. Apart from that, we walked around a little, did some shopping, managed a tasty oriental kebab, sorted out our telefonini and—since the weather was gloomy—decided it was the perfect moment to visit an exhibition at the Cavallerizza, (the former riding school), which has become one of Lucca’s main venues for art shows, rather like Palazzo Blu in Pisa or Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The exhibitions there are usually original and fascinating, and this one certainly was.
This exhibition continues a thread that began with the Puccini posters a couple of years ago, linked to the world of the Belle Époque—the “beautiful times.” That period has been everywhere lately: the great show at Palazzo Blu, the Toulouse-Lautrec display at the Innocenti in Florence, and now this one in Lucca. This time the focus is on Giovanni Boldini, the Italian painter who perhaps sums up the Belle Époque better than anyone.
Boldini is, in a sense, the Italian equivalent of John Singer Sargent: master of swish, elegance, and dazzling portraiture, especially of women in extraordinary dresses. (Boldini knew Sargent and even painted a fine portrait of him). He was lucky to live at a time when women’s fashion was perfect for painting, lucky to meet so many beautiful women, and luckier still to have affairs with some of them. His paintings capture movement, life, and glamour through long, flowing brushstrokes, a sense of speed, and a nervous, brilliant energy.
But his work is not only about fashionable society. Of course there is high life, elegance, and display, but there are also intimate portraits of young women, quiet scenes in orchards and gardens, and tender, almost enchanting countryside views, even if these are fewer. At times he moves close to Impressionism. He was influenced by the Macchiaioli, the Italian Impressionists, but only as part of his range. He could use their techniques when he wished, yet above all he remained himself: the swish, the flow, the long strokes, the elegance.
Sadly, Boldini’s eyesight deteriorated toward the end of his life. He died in the 1930s at almost ninety. After the First World War he painted very little, and in a way that suited him. I don’t think he ever really felt at home with the new fashions of the 1920s—the flappers, the short dresses, the sharp lines. There are one or two portraits with those dreadful cloche hats, but they are not what we remember him for. His true world was the Belle Époque.
We were really glad we went to this exhibition which also displayed several paintings of his contemporaries placing his own uniqueness into perspective. It was far more impressive than we expected, and we fell in love with many of the paintings. I was completely struck by one in particular—a woman just after her bath. The beauty of her body, the form, the softness… it was deeply sensual. Yes, it is sexual, but sexual with elegance and culture, not the crude vulgarity that passes for sexuality today. This was refined, sophisticated, and deeply human.
It is a wonderful exhibition, and I would recommend it to everyone. It is beautifully done and truly memorable—a perfect escape from all the gloomy things that surround us: the news, the weather, the economy, everything. It lets you plunge into the Belle Époque, even while knowing that that period itself had many problems—disease, hypocrisy, poverty, moral contradictions—most of which are not shown here.
And perhaps that is why Boldini was so loved. He gave people a way out. He gave life, movement, and elegance. He glorified women, made them radiant, modern, and beautiful. And if beauty is truth, then perhaps truth is beauty too.
‘Càscina lies at the heart of a rich, flourishing and populous land, amid fertile fields and vineyards, stretched across a splendid plain along the ducal road from Pisa to Florence, between the River Arno and the Rinònico drainage canal.”
Thus begins Càscina and its Environs, written in 1912 by the Reverend Francesco Conti — a sentence that already contains, like a seed, the town’s geography, its vocation, and its destiny. It
Càscina stands where water, land, and roads have always converged: two miles east of Fornacette, eight from Pisa, fourteen from Livorno. A crossroads of trade and cultivation, history and survival.
The origin of the name “Càscina” remains veiled in uncertainty, suspended between legend and scholarship. Some historians trace it back to the Etruscan settlement of Càsne; others link it to the river that once bore the same name. That river appears in documents as early as 935, while the name “Càscina” itself surfaces in a parchment dated 26 June 750 AD, recording the donation of a house to the Church of Saint Mary of Càssina — a humble act marking the town’s first appearance in written history.
Four centuries later, on 27 October 1142, another parchment — preserved today in the Archbishop’s Archives of Pisa — records a decisive moment: Archbishop Balduino granted the inhabitants of the territory the right, and the duty, to build a castle and a town. Càscina was no longer merely a place; it became a fortified community.
By the Middle Ages, the town had taken on the form of a stronghold: a rectangular castle encircled by twelve towers, linked by low defensive walls and protected by a wide moat. Documents from 1270 speak of a bell tower and a fortified channel dug south of the Arno, both to defend Pisan territory and to regulate the river’s dangerous floods — a reminder that here, nature has always been both ally and threat.
In the 14th century the defenses were reinforced once more. Walls were raised, towers strengthened, and two gates constructed: one opening toward Florence, the other toward Pisa — symbols of a town poised between rival powers.
During the era of the Pisan Republic, Càscina stood loyally with the Emperor, opposing Lucca and Florence. That allegiance endured until 29 July 1364, when Florence defeated Pisa in the brutal Battle of Càscina — an event immortalized by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Though only preparatory drawings survive from his hand, the clash lives on through Vasari’s fresco in the Hall of the Five Hundred in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, where art preserves what history destroyed. Under Florentine rule, Càscina did not decline. On the contrary, it grew. By 1622 the town counted 5,587 inhabitants, and by the 18th century it had become the most populous and important rural center in all of Tuscany.
Modernity arrived with violence and progress intertwined. Toward the end of the 19th century, the Pisan and Florentine gates — along with parts of the walls — were demolished to make way for the Leopolda railway linking Florence and Pisa. Later, war inflicted further wounds. The Second World War erased entire sections of the ancient defenses.
Today the historic center appears fragmented, shaped by demolitions and transformations between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet fragments endure: the pentagonal Parisina Tower, the Stradina, the Piazza d’Armi, and the streets tracing the ancient walls — relics embedded within the modern town like fossils in stone.
The first monument to greet the visitor is the Civic, or Clock, Tower, rising in the western part of the old town where the Pisan gate once stood. Built of brick, it originally formed part of a militia building. Its current height of 72 feet reflects centuries of additions, visibly layered upon its surface — time made architectural.
Like many Italian towns, Càscina grew around its parish church square. Here stand the most significant civic and religious buildings: the Parish Church of Saint Mary and Saint John, the Chapel of the Sacrament, the Holy Cross Oratory, the bell tower, and the Stefanini Palace. The parish church — the oldest in the area — already existed in the second half of the 8th century, though the present structure dates from the late 11th. Its Romanesque basilican plan, sober and harmonious, is marked by a gabled façade with blind arcades and crowned by a marble cross. On its right wall, an inscription recalls the passage of Emperor Frederick II’s troops in 1228 — history etched into stone. Inside, monolithic columns of pink granite and cipollino marble preserve the church’s original Romanesque severity.
Adjoining the church is the Chapel of the Sacrament, once separate and part of a small cemetery relocated in the late 18th century. Its interior unfolds in late-Baroque elegance. To the south lies the Holy Cross Oratory — once a baptistery — long abandoned, now restored to its baroque splendor, with a marble baptismal font at its heart.
The bell tower, asymmetrical and misaligned with the church, hints at its military origins. Built on the remains of an earlier tower, it aligns with the old castle. Its limestone base supports a brick upper section rebuilt after damage from a raid in 1295.
Facing the church stands the Stefanini Palace, now home to the Misericordia. Its austere brick façade contrasts with the richness inside, particularly the grand galleried hall blending baroque and neoclassical styles.
Along Corso Matteotti, the town’s main artery, stands the Oratory of Saint John the Baptist — known locally as “the nuns’ little church.” Built at the end of the 14th century by Bartolo Palmieri, a member of the Knights Hospitaller, it contains frescoes by the Sienese painter Martino di Bartolommeo. Anna Franchi, writing in 1928, captured its essence: “At first, the emptiness makes it seem larger than it is. Gradually, solitude dissolves. Magnificent images fill every surface. No wall has been neglected.”
Leaving the historic center and heading east, one reaches the Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Water — an elegant Greek-cross structure built between 1614 and 1619, with a domed bell tower added decades later. The municipality’s 30 square miles extend westward along the Tosco-Romagnola road, the commercial spine of the territory. Along it rise villages, churches, and traces of devotion and labor.
At Settimo stands the Church of Saint Benedict, mentioned as early as 861. Its sanctuary houses rare works, including a 14th-century English alabaster altarpiece — one of only four in Italy.
Nearby, during dry summers, the Arno reveals the submerged ruins of Saint Peter within-the-Castle, destroyed by floods in 1545.
Further west lies Saint Casciano, whose Romanesque church — adorned by the sculptor Biduino — stands among the most important monuments of the region.
Nearby Zambra preserves the unspoiled medieval church of Saint Jacopo, with symbolic murals recalling early Christian iconography.
Saint Savino’s Abbey rises on an artificial embankment, born from disaster and devotion after an Arno flood destroyed its predecessor. Its bell tower, destroyed in 1943 by retreating Nazi troops, has been rebuilt — an act of memory and resilience.
Castles, churches, and villages mark the western boundary, beyond which lies Pisa. Turning south and east, the journey continues through Bibbiano, Marcianella, and finally back to Càscina — a circle completed.
For centuries, agriculture shaped the town’s identity. In the 20th century, craftsmanship — particularly woodworking — transformed it. In 1922, the first permanent furniture exhibition opened, followed by the founding of the National Institute of Art, spreading Cascina’s fame worldwide.
Later economic crises redirected the town toward commerce, services, and innovation. The City of the Theatre and Navacchio’s Technological Centre symbolize this new chapter.
Yet perhaps Càscina’s most astonishing contribution lies in the fields south of town, where science reaches for the cosmos. Here stands VIRGO, a vast interferometric antenna designed to detect gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime predicted by Einstein himself. With arms stretching two miles each, it listens to the universe.
And so, in a land shaped by rivers, wars, faith, and labor, one of humanity’s oldest questions — Where do we come from? — may yet find its answer. Here, in Càscina.
Today is a national holiday in Italy. January 6th marks the feast of the Epiphany, the moment in the Christian calendar when the Three Wise Men—Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar—finally arrive at the humble crib in Bethlehem to pay homage to the newborn Jesus. In theological terms, the Epiphany represents revelation: the manifestation of Christ not merely to the Jewish world, but to all nations. In popular culture, however, it has always been something richer, stranger, and more layered than doctrine alone.
In Italy, the Epiphany is one of those festivals where religion, history, theatre, and folklore coexist comfortably, without the need to explain themselves to one another. This is especially true in Florence, where the Cavalcata dei Re Magi transforms the city into a living Renaissance tableau. Noblemen in brocade and velvet, ladies with elaborate headdresses, musicians, banners, horses, and camels parade through streets that have seen such spectacles for centuries. The procession is not merely a re-enactment; it is an assertion of continuity, a reminder that Florentine civic identity has long been shaped as much by ritual and display as by politics or commerce.
Yet, for all the splendour of kings and courts, Epiphany in Italy belongs just as much—perhaps more—to an altogether different figure: La Befana.
On the night of January 5th, Italian children hang stockings by fireplaces, bedposts, or windows in eager anticipation. While the Magi travel solemnly on camelback in daylight processions, La Befana flies invisibly through the winter darkness on her broomstick. She is described as very old, bent, toothless, dressed in rags, her face blackened by soot. She is no ethereal fairy, no graceful Madonna. She is, unapologetically, a crone.
Good children wake to find sweets, chocolates, and small presents in their stockings. Bad children receive coal—though these days it is usually made of sugar. In earlier centuries, however, coal was real enough, and in the depth of winter even a moral rebuke could be repurposed for warmth. Italian folklore, like Italian life, has always been practical in this way.
The name Befana is, of course, a corruption of Epifania, worn down by centuries of oral transmission. But the character herself feels older than Christianity, and this is no illusion. Scholars widely agree that La Befana preserves elements of pre-Christian, agrarian belief systems. She is linked to ancient Roman festivals marking the end of the agricultural year, when the old cycle of time was ritually “swept away” to make room for the new. Her broom is not merely a witch’s accessory but a symbol of cleansing and renewal. Her age represents the dying year; her generosity, the promise of fertility and rebirth.
In this sense, La Befana belongs to a long European tradition of powerful old women—figures who preside over thresholds, endings, and transformations. She is kin to the Fates, to winter goddesses, to the frightening but necessary female spirits who remind communities that life does not renew itself without decay. Christianity did not so much erase these figures as absorb them, clothe them in new meanings, and allow them to survive in the margins of belief.
This is where my title which juxtaposes young mermaids and aged crones finds its deeper resonance. Western imagination has always been far more comfortable celebrating youthful female enchantment than venerating female age. Mermaids are beautiful, dangerous, and eternally young; crones are useful, wise, unsettling—and therefore often mocked or softened into caricature. La Befana, however, resists erasure. She remains central to a national festival, loved by children, tolerated by religion, and rooted in something older than both.
Unlike Santa Claus, whose imported image has grown increasingly glossy and commercial, La Befana has never been fully sanitised. She is still ugly, still old, still slightly frightening. And yet she is benevolent. In a culture that often equates value with youth, her persistence is quietly radical.
There is also something deeply Italian in the way La Befana coexists with the Magi. Kings and beggars, sacred revelation and folk superstition, beauty and decay—all are allowed to occupy the same calendar day. This coexistence reflects a broader cultural instinct: the refusal to reduce tradition to a single narrative. Italy’s past is layered, contradictory, and unresolved, and its festivals mirror that complexity.
If you would like to read more about the origins of La Befana, her linguistic evolution, her pagan ancestry, and the proverb “L’Epifania tutte le feste porta via”—which reminds us that after January 6th the long season of feasting must finally come to an end—you can find my more detailed exploration here: https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/lepifania-tutte-le-feste-porta-via/
In the end, Epiphany in Italy is not simply about revelation in the theological sense. It is about uncovering what has always been there: the survival of ancient symbols beneath newer beliefs, the endurance of the old woman beside the newborn child, and the uneasy but fertile dialogue between youth and age, beauty and wisdom, mermaids and crones.
It’s been more than sixty years since Florence last dedicated a major exhibition to the Renaissance painter Beato (Fra) Angelico. The new show at Palazzo Strozzi feels unmissable in at least two ways:
it changes how we look at Fra Angelico, and
it brings together works that have been restored, reattributed, and even reassembled after centuries of separation in museums across the world.
For anyone who loves early Renaissance art, the exhibition is not just a display — it’s almost a rediscovery.
It Is unfortunate, even tragic, that so many Italian early renaissance paintings have been dismembered. The altarpieces would have had a main painting and be surrounded by smaller panels or predelle illustrating scenes from the lives of the main protagonist. So many of them were sold off by ruthless local art dealers only to find their way to collectors in America and northern Europe. This exhibition has several of these altarpieces to be reassembled, temporarily. When paintings began to be done on canvases and predelle went out of fashion for religious themes then dismemberment disappeared..or did it,? How many of these pictures were actually cut up and their strips sold separately?
Another point to realise is that Beato Angelico and his contemporaries’ paintings were to be guides to worshipping eternal verities (as several miraculous images still do in the manner of orthodox icons) rather than providing an entertaining afternoon visit in the local art gallery. Are we then to kneel before them here in their palazzo setting? Perhaps not but let us at least worship their divine inspiration from a very fine artist.
What Makes Fra Angelico So Special?
I’ve found myself reflecting on this a lot while walking through the rooms of the exhibition. Why does Angelico speak so strongly to us today? Why does he suddenly seem so modern, fresh, and relevant?
What makes him unique — technically, spiritually, symbolically — and why has his reputation been growing so rapidly in recent decades?
For these reasons, surely:
1. A Painter of Both Innovation and Prayer
Fra Angelico (born Fra’ Giovanni da Fiesole) is that rarest of artistic figures: a painter of deep contemplative spirituality and a pioneer of Renaissance technique.
He manages to be simultaneously a meditative, almost mystical presence and an innovator in perspective, colour, and spatial clarity.
He paints with the aim of making us pray with our eyes. His works radiate a peaceful intensity that brings the viewer to a reflective pause.
2. A Bridge Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Angelico stands at a delicate turning point in art history. One can still feel the medieval world in his radiant colours, his use of gold, and his refined decorative details. And yet he steps confidently into the Renaissance with meaningful perspective, calm and believable human figures, and a new sense of natural space.
It’s as if Beato Angelico brings the devotion of the Middle Ages into harmony with the emerging realism of the Renaissance.
Why His Fame Is Rising Again Today
In the past 20–30 years Beato Angelico’s reputation has undergone a major revival. This is thanks to restorations that have revealed luminous original colours and shimmering gold once dulled by centuries. New scholarship has highlighted his sophisticated theological knowledge and overturned old ideas about his supposed “naivety.” He is now seen as a poet of the sacred, not merely as a Dominican friar who happened to paint.
Beato Angelico’s Painting Technique: Light, Colour, and Contemplation
1. Pure, Luminous Colours
Angelico worked mostly in tempera on wood panel or in fresco. His palette included lapis lazuli for blue, cinnabar for red, and generous applications of gold leaf, often stamped and tooled.
The effect is a glowing, almost supernatural radiance.
2. Faces Modelled with Tender Precision
His figures are soft, balanced, and emotionally calm.
This serenity is his unmistakable signature. Each face feels like a moment of prayer frozen in paint.
3. Perspective Used with Restraint
Beato Angelico applies perspective not to impress, like some contemporaries such as Masaccio, but to organise the visual space and lead the viewer gently toward the central theological idea.
His pictorial architecture is simple, clear, and deeply intentional.
4. A Meditative Working Method
Vasari — with his usual mix of truth and mythology — wrote that Fra Angelico prayed before each painting session and would “never change a face unless he believed he could make it more spiritually perfect.”
Whether literal or symbolic, it captures the essence of his approach.
The Symbolic Language of Beato Angelico
Angelico’s works are rich with symbolic vocabulary drawn from medieval tradition, Scripture, and Dominican theology.
1. Light
Light is never harsh or dramatic. It represents divine presence: calm, steady, benevolent.
2. Colours with Theological Meaning
Blue: divine truth, the purity of Mary
Red: love, sacrifice, Christ’s blood
Gold: eternity, heaven
White: revelation, spiritual illumination
His colours are not decorative; they teach.
3. Simple Architecture
Spaces are bare, bright, and proportioned — visual metaphors for Dominican simplicity and contemplation.
4. The Enclosed Garden (Hortus Conclusus)
A frequent symbol of Mary’s purity, especially in Annunciation scenes. The plants themselves often carry meaning: roses for divine love, lilies for purity, palms for martyrdom.
5. Angels
His angels are transparent, delicate, pastel-coloured — not terrifying messengers, but beings of peace and harmony.
How Beato Angelico’s Symbolism Developed
Angelico’s visual language emerges from three great traditions:
Dominican spirituality, with its emphasis on light, truth, and poverty;
Late medieval Florentine art, with its gold, elegance, and narrative clarity;
Early Renaissance innovations, which he absorbed at San Marco amid the influences of Masaccio and Brunelleschi.
Angelico distilled all of this into a style that is both humble and transcendent — a form of visual meditation.
If the Palazzo Strozzi exhibition proves anything, it’s that Beato Angelico is not just a painter of the past. He is an artist whose clarity, peace, and beauty still speak powerfully to us today.
We left this marvellous exhibition illuminated — in both secular and spiritual understanding — and ever more captivated by Beato Angelico’s beautiful paintings.
The image shows The Last Judgment.
The painting was commissioned by the Camaldolese Order for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence, and is now housed in the Museo di San Marco in Florence.
The composition is divided into three main sections: Heaven (top center), Paradise (left), and Hell (right).
In the center, Christ is depicted in judgment, surrounded by saints and angels blowing trumpets.
To Christ’s left (viewer’s right), demons round up the damned on a barren landscape, while to his right (viewer’s left), the saved and saints are led into a beautiful garden.
Although any project to restore Villa Fiori to its former glory is to be applauded I remain hesitant about its success for the following reasons.
1. The restoration of the villa in itself is a mammoth project. We have visited its interior in the past year – just the replacement of the roof would require major investment. To add to this restoration the building of a spa and health centre next to it without even the certainty that it will be supplied with thermal water is a heroic task.
2. Thermal waters with a spa are already present at the Bagni Bernabo’ (which we have attended for some years now), the Hotel delle Terme and, very soon now, at the Terme alla Villa. These establishments are in addition to the Terme Varraud with its natural caves, mud and thermal baths which, regrettably, largely because of economic reasons, have been closed for some years now
3. The area around the Villa Fiori is a public garden owned by the comune of Bagni di Lucca. To sell a part of it off to built a private wellness centre would be both a huge legal challenge and be unfair to Bagni citizens who use it for their recreation and for local events. Already to our shock horror we notice that the garden is now blocked off from anyone who tries to reach it across the footbridge at Ponte.
4. The whole area is under the Italian ‘Belle Arti’ and remains a conservation area subject to strict rules regarding any development. I do not feel the plans I have seen for the proposed wellness centre would satisfy the Belle Arti.Frankly I would like the project to be restricted to the villa itself which, no doubt, would suit itself well for conversion into a time-share residence (like the town’s Hotel Svizzero) or partitioned off as flats or even turned into a boutique hotel.Of course, we would all like Villa Fiori to see better days but let hopes not be raised too high. I feel we need to concentrate first of all in getting the original Terme Varraud, which many who read this will remember with some fondness, back into business with a firm reinvestment there.
Sebbene qualsiasi progetto di restauro di Villa Fiori sia degno di plauso, rimango titubante sul suo successo per i seguenti motivi.
Il restauro della villa in sé è un progetto colossale. Ne abbiamo visitato gli interni l’anno scorso: solo la sostituzione del tetto richiederebbe un investimento ingente.
Aggiungere a questo restauro la costruzione di un centro benessere e termale adiacente, senza nemmeno la certezza che sarà alimentato con acqua termale, è un’impresa eroica.
Le acque termali con spa sono già presenti ai Bagni Bernabò (che frequentiamo da alcuni anni), all’Hotel delle Terme e, molto presto, alle Terme alla Villa. Questi stabilimenti si aggiungono alle Terme Varraud con le sue grotte naturali, i fanghi e le terme che, purtroppo, soprattutto per motivi economici, sono chiuse da alcuni anni.
L’area intorno a Villa Fiori è un giardino pubblico di proprietà del Comune di Bagni di Lucca. Vendere una parte per costruire un centro benessere privato rappresenterebbe un’enorme sfida legale e sarebbe ingiusto nei confronti dei cittadini di Bagni che lo utilizzano per il loro tempo libero e per eventi locali. Con nostro grande orrore, notiamo che il giardino è ora interdetto a chiunque cerchi di raggiungerlo attraverso la passerella pedonale di Ponte.
L’intera area è sottoposta a vincolo delle Belle Arti e rimane un’area protetta soggetta a rigide norme per quanto riguarda qualsiasi sviluppo edilizio. Non credo che i progetti che ho visto per il centro benessere proposto soddisfino le esigenze delle Belle Arti. Francamente, vorrei che il progetto fosse limitato alla villa stessa, che, senza dubbio, si adatterebbe bene alla conversione in una residenza multiproprietà (come l’Hotel Svizzero della città) o alla suddivisione in appartamenti o addirittura alla trasformazione in un boutique hotel. Certo, vorremmo tutti che Villa Fiori vedesse giorni migliori, ma non lasciamoci prendere dalle speranze. Credo che dovremmo concentrarci prima di tutto sul rilancio delle Terme Varraud originali, che molti di coloro che leggono questo ricorderanno con affetto, con un solido reinvestimento.
Yesterday I visited Lucca’s Santa Zita clinic with its sweet garden.
The ‘Casa di Cura’ Santa Zita was opened in Lucca in 1955 by an association composed mainly of doctors. Since 1958 it has been managed by the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit. Their Religious Congregation was founded in 1882 by Elena Guerra, born and raised in Lucca. Like the other main clinic in Lucca, the Barbantine, it works closely with the Italian national health system.
Lucca boasts many saintly women (and some less so like Lucida Mansi!) Of the saintly there are three who are particularly venerated. They are
I’ve written about the two saints in other posts but said nothing about Elena so far.
Maria Elena Antonietta Guerra was one of the six children of Antonio Guerra and Faustina Franceschi, a wealthy and pious aristocratic married couple from Lucca. Only three children reached adulthood. Elena Guerra, after time spent in assisting the sick, decided to dedicate herself to a more intense religious life.
In 1882 she founded a lay female community in Lucca dedicated to the education of girls and to Santa Zita, patron saint of the city. It was a community without vows, a fellowship of volunteers dedicated to teaching. Gemma Galgani was also among her students.
The spread of spiritualist practices in those years and the anticlericalism of the Italian State pushed Guerra to publish several booklets and convinced her to turn directly to Pope Leo XIII, so that the Church would rediscover the action of the Holy Spirit of which she was a particular devotee.
Guerra died in Lucca on 11 April 1914. Her body was transferred in 1928 to the church of Sant’Agostino, next door to the Santa Zita clinic, which constitutes the conventual chapel of the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit, where it is still venerated. Elena’s remains were subjected to canonical recognition and placed inside the main altar where they can be seen.
Elena was given the title of Apostle of the Holy Spirit. In 1930, the process for her beatification was opened and in 1953 she was beatified on April 26, 1959 by Pope John XXIII.
A sudden and baffling healing miracle attributed to invoking her name by the very ill person led to the reopening in 2012 of the ‘causa’ for Elena being made a saint. The healing was declared scientifically inexplicable by the medical board and on 13 April 2024 Pope Francis recognized it as a miracle and decreed that the canonization ceremony of the blessed Elena Guerra take place on 20 October 2024. Thus Lucca will now have three fully-fledged female saints from next month.
Incidentally what is the difference between a venerated person, a beatified one and a saint?
A venerated person is someone who has shown heroic virtues in a religious life.
A beatified person is one who in addition has caused one miracle to happen.
A saint is someone who has two miracles attributed to them in addition to being a great inspiration to humanity.
I think most of us would be extremely lucky to be even vaguely respected, let alone venerated!
The Santa Zita clinic visit was followed by one to the Palazzo Pfanner.
Here the garden is being restored but the palace museum was open where clinical instruments and documents used by Dr Pfanner (who was also a psychiatrist) were on show in the frescoed interiors.
I was so glad they’re not much used today! To take my mind off them I Imagined Nicole Kidman going down the monumental staircase in ‘Portrait of a Lady’ which was filmed in the Palazzo.
The Palazzo Pfanner (or Controni-Pfanner to give its full title) stands on the north side of Lucca. Built by the Moriconi family in 1660 using their wealth acquired through silk manufacture it was sold by them to Controni, another silk manufacturer, in 1680 who expanded it and added the monumental staircase designed by the Luccan architect Domenico Martinelli (who was also much in demand by the Hapsburg courts of Vienna and Prague).
The beautiful formal garden was designed by Filippo Juvarra. Born in Messina in 1678, Juvarra became one of Italy’s greatest baroque architects. His best work can be seen in Turin but he spent some time in the Luccan republic and designed the Villa Mansi and the Villa Garzoni together with their dramatic gardens.
In the nineteenth century the palazzo was bought by the Bavarian beer brewing family of Pfanner who still own it today and who have been engaged in a loving restoration project on their lovely house since 1996.
Going through my photographic archive I realised that I’d visited this palace in the distant 1980’s when it still housed a collection of eighteenth century costumes. Today the costumes have gone and instead there are those surgical instruments. I think I’d prefer the costumes to be back!
The rest of the palace is little changed as these almost forty (!) year-old photographs show:
Below Michelangelo’s New Sacristy, in the Medici Chapels of Florence’s San Lorenzo church there is a small and mysterious space, known as Michelangelo’s secret room. It is here that the great artist hid for some weeks to escape the death sentence. In 1530, the Medici had just returned to Florence and all those who had actively taken part in the Florentine Republic (1527-1530) were wanted, including Michelangelo.
Here are some of the masterworks the sculptor created for that new sacristy which counter-balances the old sacristy by the architect of San Lorenzo, Brunelleschi.
In 1975, during renovation work, some drawings, sanguine and charcoal sketches re-emerged from the walls of that small room. Many of these refer to Michelangelo’s memoirs or projects of his works. Among the latter there’s the Allegory of Night: a sketch for a statue – which Michelangelo would later create, once he had reconciled himself with the Medici family – still visible in the New Sacristy… the last Florentine masterpiece he sculpted before his final departure for Rome.
We were privileged to see this arcane chamber after having been accepted for a booking five months previously. Only a limited number of persons are allowed at any one time here and of the four booked we were the only two who turned up yesterday in one of Florence’s rainiest days this year. Thoroughly soaked we were admitted down a steep passageway behind the famous statues of Day and Night sculpted by perhaps the greatest artist of the renaissance.
We were thus the only two in Michaelangelo’s hidey hole for a good half-hour … apart, of course, from our guardian, a very personable and well-informed young man from Catania. He filled us in with details about the amazing charcoal sketches, some with sanguinia red pencil touches.
Here is a selection of the photos we took of this hallowed recess. Maybe you may recognize the proto-shapes of statues to come from Mr M. Buonarroti?
It was an amazing experience to be there and think about the confinement in such a small space of this very great artist. I pondered on works of art written in prisons and hidden places: Pellico’ with his ‘Confessions of an Italian’, Dostoyevsky, Ezra Pound and Louis Wain were all names that jumbled into my mind. Does physical confinement open the mind I wonder?
Returning to the new sacristy we entered the huge mausoleum the Medicis built for their family which became extinct with the death of the imbecile Gian Gastone in the eighteenth century. However, all that pomp of marble and gold counted for nothing to me when compared to one of Michaelangelo’s sketches when he was forced to be immured to save his life.
We exited into the the market surrounding the fine Brunelleschi church of San Lorenzo with the rain still pelting down and headed for a bar down a street lined by stalls, almost all of which were manned by orientals selling not so much mangoes and idols but Florentine leather bags …perhaps made in China?
By the evening the rain had ceased and we were able to enjoy the classic view of Florence from the Piazzale named after the city’s greatest artist
Searching through my photos I came across these recording a visit there in 1983.. I would not have recollected the visit if the photos were not there to prove it had occured. I do not know whether we had to book it or even pay for it. Perhaps there was less hype then about the place and, having gained entry to the new sacristy, there would have been no fuss about showing us the secret room. We were young then and married for less than ten years. Hopes sprang eternal: some realised, others, like wanting to have children, dashed to the ground. It was lovely, therefore, to say that we have returned over forty years later to an admired spot of our youth.
